There was an air of skepticism going into Thursday night’s Dears show at the Music Gallery. The band helped carry the torch to Montreal’s indie-rock renaissance three years ago but stalled with 2006’s Polaris-nominated but under-performing Gang of Losers and saw many contemporaries roar past them. The choice of such a small venue seemed to confirm that even The Dears themselves know a lot is riding on their forthcoming record Missiles. It’s a lot easier to meet your audience’s expectations when they’ve been sufficiently lowered.

But all skepticism was put aside when the band hit the stage and launched into the first of five straight new songs. The tunes blend the arena-rock leanings of Losers with the herky-jerk rhythms and traded lyrical barbs between Murray Lightburn and wife Natalia Yanchak that typified 2003’s No Cities Left. That album’s “Lost in the Plot” and “22: The Death of All Romance” were greeted warmly by the 150 people in attendance as were the new songs that filled out the rest of the set.

Lightburn is of course the band’s undisputed leader; only he and Yanchack remain from the group who made Losers two years ago, a fact that was obvious as the band looked intently to him for cues throughout the show. He was short on words for the audience, pausing only briefly mid-set to address the crowd with typical “how you all doing?” banter that even he thought was ridiculous (Although he was unintentionally hilarious when he responded to one fan's cry of “we love The Dears!” with an equally patronizing “and The Dears love you.”)  But Lightburn looked genuinely humbled when, after finishing the final song of the night, he stepped down into the audience to exchange handshakes and hugs from appreciative fans in the front row.

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